| WASHINGTON, D.C — Today, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rick Crawford (AR-01) delivered the following opening statement at a hearing examining persistent competition and legacy architecture to consider whether our current national security enterprise is keeping pace with the evolving threat landscape. Watch the full committee hearing here. Chairman Crawford’s Opening Statement as prepared for delivery: This hearing is focused on examining whether our legacy national security architecture is up to the task of confronting the threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party, Russia, and other nation states or terrorist groups determined to undermine American national security. It is my pleasure to welcome our witnesses to today’s hearing: -Frank Cilluffo, Director, McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure at Auburn University -David Feith, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute -Seth Jones, President, Defense and Security Department, Center for Strategic and International Studies Thank you for being here. First, by architecture, I am referring to the interlocking set of laws, institutions, authorities, and decision-making processes through which the U.S.: -First, identifies national security threats to its sovereignty, interests, and citizens, and; -Second, organizes the people, resources, and strategies needed to prevent, deter, or respond to those threats. The questions we are asking today directly relate to the Committee’s review of the 9/11 Commission over the past year — the bipartisan report of which we released this week that I encourage all here and listening to download and consider — as well as our efforts throughout the 119th Congress on our counterintelligence posture. Both Committee initiatives have detailed how the threat environment has drastically changed over the pas 20 years; and the speed of that change is only increasing. Today, we ask whether our government architecture is appropriate to respond to this new environment and how we can and must keep pace. We must openly consider where we are succeeding, and where we need to change our approach. In 2004, Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, established the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, National Counterterrorism Center, and Department of Homeland Security. It was disruptive, but the vulnerabilities illustrated by 9/11 demanded it. Today’s hybrid threat environment is no less daunting. China and Russia run persistent, whole-of-society campaigns inside the homeland — penetrating networks, compromising supply chains, cultivating insiders, and running influence operations across legal, illegal, and the unclear areas often referred to as the “gray-zone.” Foreign intelligence services increasingly collude with cartels, criminals, and hackers to destabilize the West, and AI is accelerating their reach in ways that remind me of the 9/11 Commission’s warning about the danger of us having a “failure of imagination.” Is it possible the counterintelligence equivalent of 9/11 waits, undetected, because we are failing to adapt a decentralized system where parochial agency interests, not national interests, determine strategy? The Intelligence Community must answer such questions to provide decision advantage for strategy, policy, operations, and investments. And we, as oversight of that Intelligence Community, must regularly step back and ask the big questions rather than wait for strategic surprise to force our nation to examine institutionalized assumptions, as we did prior to September 11, 2001. Maybe the architecture is structured appropriately, or the best we can expect from government institutions. Maybe it needs targeted reform. Maybe fundamental change. These are the questions we hope to discuss today, to avoid thoughtlessly defending the status quo. I again thank our witnesses and look forward to their testimony. With that, I would like to yield to the distinguished Ranking Member, Mr. Himes, for his opening statement. ### |
